By ALEXANDRIA BORDAS | Reporter
The Palisadian-Post continues to investigate the mystery surrounding the late Jeffrey Lash and his fiancée Catherine Nebron, whose Highlands condo was filled with over 1,200 firearms, six-and-a-half tons of ammunition and $230,000 in cash.
In the past week, authorities close to the investigation told the Post that sometime last year, Lash flipped one of his vehicles while driving on Palisades Drive. Several guns spilled out of the vehicle onto the roadway, but since the firearms were all registered, police did not investigate further.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
In an exclusive interview with the Post, a longtime resident of the condo complex in the 1700 block of Palisades Drive provided insights into the couple’s life.
“They are either growing marijuana or it’s a meth lab. Or maybe they are even making bombs…” the neighbor said he repeatedly thought to himself as he observed their strange behavior over the past 18 years.
Authorities have not reported any evidence of any of these activities.
Part of what made the neighbor think something strange was going on in the condo was a nightly ritual involving a woman with long blond hair.
“Every night for the past 15 years a woman would drive up to their house in her Mercedes (no license plates). She would drop off large green trash bags on their stairs and then leave,” the neighbor said.
The resident said he never spoke to the woman and never saw her go inside Nebron’s townhouse.
The neighbor said the man he knew only as ‘Bob’ indicated that he was part of a survivalist group and had invited a past condo homeowners association (HOA) president to join his group.
“[The past HOA president] told a group of us that Bob asked him to join his survivalist group so that Bob could teach him how to rappel his car backwards down Palisades Drive,” the resident told the Post with a laugh. “Apparently [he] needed to know how to get out of the neighborhood quickly in case the government attacked, which is why rappelling a car was supposedly a necessary skill.”
The condo complex resident said Lash told him he was an ex-government agent, was still involved with ‘black ops’ and was keeping government equipment inside the townhouse, which is why no one was allowed to enter their residence.
“I mean the shades were always shut and the most they ever had their front door open was six inches and that was just so a fan could blow inside,” he said.
The resident said there were also instances when Nebron and/or Lash would try to play hardball with neighbors over HOA issues.
“Anytime there was an issue, especially with the HOA, Catherine would threaten us by saying, ‘My father is a judge and if we have to get him involved we will,’” the neighbor said.
Nebron’s father is the late Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Irwin Nebron, who died in 2012.
On a lighter note, “Bob would tell me jokes just about every single time I saw him,” he said. “The jokes were often sexual in nature and really lame. Catherine always looked annoyed and upset whenever he would stop to tell me a joke.”
The resident added that he and other neighbors are concerned about Nebron returning to the condo complex.
“We’re not comfortable with Catherine being our neighbor for various reasons and honestly we were never comfortable,” he said. “I’m not a paranoid guy, but this is a scary situation.”
LASH’S VEHICLES STIR INTRIGUE
According to another Highlands resident who asked not to be named, Lash and Nebron had been parking various SUVs, including the black pick-up pictured in the July 30 issue of the Post, on Avenida De Cortez since as early as 2012.
None of the cars ever had license plates or visible registration, according to the neighbor.
“There was one point when the vehicles had cameras inside them facing out the windows,” he added.
Two silver Toyota SUVs that had been parked there for years were finally towed away before Lash’s body was discovered, the neighbor said.
“The blonde lady would usually drive by every few days to check on the cars and make sure there were no markings on the tires or tickets. They were always very suspicious when in the cars. If someone was walking by, they’d get out of the car (the one parked on the street) and close the door and wait for you to finish walking by before getting back in, but never moving it.
“When neighbors asked about the cars, the woman would scream about how it’s ‘national security’ or ‘he’s in the CIA,’” the neighbor said.
Frances Sharpe contributed to this article.
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